Hurley RR crossing awarded full funding

A long-needed repair is finally moving forward in Hurley after staffers and town councilors received word that full funding has been awarded for a project to replace a railroad crossing on Diaz Avenue.

The New Mexico Department of Transportation awarded more than $1.3 million this week to replace the crossing, build sidewalks that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and replace crossing warning lights and guard arms that do not function. The money came after a push from state Sen. Howie Morales, working alongside Hurley Mayor Fernando Martinez and Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments Executive Director Priscilla Lucero, and will revive a project that has been on the back burner for some time.

Morales said he has always believed that the crossing is a safety concern, even before Martinez took over as mayor. Morales said that although the state budget is facing an extreme shortfall, this money has been appropriated for a long time.

“There’s a combination of federal dollars that were given. Since this had already been prioritized as a safety concern in previous years, [these aren’t] necessarily new dollars, these were dollars that were there,” he said. “I thought with all the big news of state funding [cuts], this is a positive. The biggest concern to me was the crossing guards not working properly.”

In an email to the Daily Press, NMDOT Public Information Officer Ami Evans wrote that the Federal Highway Administration Highway Safety Improvement Program helped fund the upcoming project.

“The Diaz road crossing has a number of elements that are not common with grade crossings. The project includes rebuilding the crossing surfaces for all four tracks, while most crossings have one track,” Evans wrote. “The project includes modernizing the detection system for approaching trains, which is complicated because there are a number of railroad switches just east of the crossing; the gates must activate regardless of which set of tracks approaching trains are traveling on. Also, sidewalks will be constructed on both sides of Diaz [Avenue], and this will require relocating the nearest railroad switches on each side of Diaz.”

Lucero said that although the town has met the requirements for the funding through the grant, the project won’t begin immediately — but it should start before the previously projected start date in 2018.

“It’s been a while. I can’t even tell you how long it’s been. We’re doing things to improve safety along the rail lines,” she said. “That’s the greatest impact is improving safety.”

Martinez said he is grateful for all the work that Lucero and Morales have done in helping obtain this funding, and said the project will be a great help to the town.

“We’ve been working on this for quite a while, and with the support of Senator Morales, he pushed this up there at the state level, and finally they moved,” he said. “This construction was supposed to have started sometime last year, I guess, and it was pushed back to 2018. … It’s going to be a good little project. We’ve been having problems with the crossing arms for quite a while.”

State Rep. John Zimmerman said he is always happy to work as an advocate for communities to help “cut the red tape” in Santa Fe.

“I’ve been in contact with the mayor on this in the past, and I think it’s very aggressive and they’re fighting for those types of grants,” Zimmerman said. “I’m just happy that they got the grant because they have worked hard. The mayor and the county clerk and the whole staff at Hurley, they’ve been very proactive.”